


Epilogue

by Anonymous



Category: Lunch Club (Podcast), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Gen, Post-Apocalypse, Zombie Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-13
Updated: 2020-03-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:46:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22242805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Wilbur loves being British. Not in the shitty faux-patriotic sense, not in the gimmicky tea-and-crumpets way, but because it's a part of him (and nowadays, a part of his brand). When everything goes to shit, however, it's just a small small island in the middle of a big big sea.Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream...Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily; life is but a dream...
Relationships: No Romantic Relationship(s)
Comments: 60
Kudos: 149
Collections: Anonymous





	1. Ground Zero

The apocalypse treats him almost offensively well, all things considered. 

It's not like the movies he ferreted away as a kid, the kind that introduced him to cinema and editing alongside the brutal gore. At the crux of it all the world ends not with a bang, but with a slow and hopeless wail. 

Little things, in increments he can almost ignore at first. Petrol prices leap suddenly upwards and out of his budget, which is...fine. Wilbur takes more buses, and when they become less reliable, more trains. There's an awful war over the oil shortages in some far-off country, and a subsequent charity stream that feels as if it doesn't make a dent. In the wake of its success he reads a ton of angry op-eds; they rant passionately about climate change and social mobility and the fetishisation of war. All of it leaves a bad taste in Wilbur's mouth at four in the morning. He books a doctor's appointment about five weeks ahead, cancels his Friday stream and decides it's genuinely time for sleeping pills again.

His roommate quietly lets him know over microwave dinner that, full disclosure, he seriously can't cover his half of the rent this time. Of course, of _course_ Wilbur tells him not to worry about it - what feels like the kind and obvious gesture - but the simple fact that he himself could afford it thrice over makes their conversation awkward and stilted for weeks afterward.

When it becomes hard to avoid replacing his computer, solar power is all the rage. It's pricey to buy and arguably paranoid of him to think it will be needed, but what the hell. It's not every day you replace what is functionally your entire workplace, after all. The research is a nice distraction, Schlatt and Cooper's advice even more so, from the stories about leaked illegal research that plague his shiny new HD monitor. 

One evening, he logs on to find gleeful, confused DMs from everyone he knows who works online. There's been a steady, impossible uptick in views and subscribers and followers. All day long. For everybody. It's some actually useful government initiative that's been hushed up, something to do with satellites and autonomous servers. (He spends a lot more time reading thinkpieces about it, a lot less time making videos.) Almost a fortnight of memes concerning what's in Google's basement later, over half the population of Earth has stable, sustainable Internet access. Wilbur, on the other hand, has an appointment to attend.

The television in the waiting room is crackly and low-res. A brunette news anchor notes the worrying discovery of a new rabies strain in Argentina. It's described as a "paralytic, deeply concerning waterborne virus" by a sweaty, exhausted-looking student. He hates news so much.

"It's really just a matter of supply and demand," says the nurse gently, settling into the unoccupied chair with visible anxiety. The words _General Practitioner_ have been sloppily painted over on the door. "I know it's unprofessional, but we've simply not got the stock to spare. If you actually feel you need them, we can do some paperwork-"

"No, I'll be quite alright," Wilbur says in a daze. He won't, but the man in front of him looks overworked and exhausted. What on Earth has happened in these past few months? He's not a total shut-in; this overnight descent feels...oddly familiar. "Austerity and all that, I get it. Have a good night, yeah?" 

"I'll do my best." The joke falls flat. Neither of them laugh as he zips up his coat. One of the gaudy posters in the hallway reminds him always to wash his hands after handling contaminated equipment, and his palms begin to itch. 

In the manner of most large cities, the GP has a pharmacy attached. As comforting and universal as the ugly patterned carpet and vaguely sterile smell are, he's haunted by the emptiness of the aisles. It seems unnatural. Whenever he was sick as a kid, even in his hazy memories of one hometown or the next, his mum would let him retrieve Calpol from well-stocked shelves in a room just like this. As it is, he bundles together as many painkillers as he's allowed to buy at once and winces at the scraps left behind. 

The squat pharmacist behind the counter looks at him for a beat too long, and genuinely squeals with recognition when he politely enquires about her plans for Easter. She asks for his autograph for her darling twins, thanks him for entertaining them even when times are, well, as hard as they are now, you know how it is, and Wilbur nods and smiles and he is _so tired of existing like this._

It's all paranoia, he tells himself as he locks his bedroom door and yells goodnight through it to his equally tired roommate. Baseless paranoia at that, with a job as forgiving and lucrative as his own has become. He's being ungrateful. 

Then, he realises what the nurse's harried smile had reminded him of. His mum at the kitchen table, hunched over documents twelve-year-old Will barely understood, promising him that everything would be fine. Nobody ever called him William, not really, not even then. 

Daniel laughs when Wilbur brings it up on call one night, neglecting to mention his growing hoard of medicine and non-perishables for fear of sounding totally insane. 

"Pal, you worry too much. It's just all the big companies having their annual....let's call it a Brexit-based pissing contest. Not anything to worry about, not the end of the world. And certainly not the fuckin' _2008 financial crisis_ , goddamn." It does admittedly sound a tad silly when he puts it like that. He laughs as Wilbur shrugs and gets up to water his plant, grumbling. "Maybe, instead of killing yourself for content every night," RT adjusts his webcam to smirk knowingly, directly at the lens, "you should take a break. Get some sleep, Will. Say hey to Rhianna for me, yeah?"

With this Irish wisdom ringing in his ears, Wilbur spends the sunrise staring at the ceiling, listening to the birds greet each other and missing his fucking family.

It's been almost four months since that night. 

The first month, his roommate moves back home to be with family. There's a mass exodus from London, fear of nuclear war, economic collapse. An entire Argentinean tribe are found dead, in what is said to be an aggressive rabies circulation. Reading between the lines, the press thinks its governmental genocide. Wilbur isn't sure what to think, so he buys more medicine. And then a bunch of masks and gloves. And then butane and a gas stove. Nothing wrong with being prepared, right?

No, nothing at all. He buys a phone with solar and a memory card and starts filling it with important music and pictures and VODs, for absolutely no reason at all.

The second month, there's a concentrated relief effort. A plane from Argentina to Germany plunges into the sea, but the tragedy is overshadowed by the border closing at Calais. There's been a military coup in Germany. Wilbur gets a lot of texts from estranged friends and family, and tries to put how much he loves them into words. He keeps streaming, and he doesn't think about how little money is beginning to mean - to him or truthfully at all.

Carson sends him an uncharacteristically serious email on behalf of Lunch Club, offering him plane tickets to Indiana and a place to at least ride out the crisis. He refuses five times to three members before they give up, but at least they're keeping in touch.

At one point comes the compulsion to order things online (whilst it's still an option, whispers a sonorous voice that he tries not to listen to). Frivolous things, childish things, everything he's ever denied himself out of misplaced pride and belief in maturity. A pretty snowglobe. A box of Freddos. A brightly coloured scarf, thick and woolen but otherwise like the blue silk one his nan used to wear.

Alongside the dozens of knick-knacks and sweets are some more serious purchases. Industrial-sized bottles of water that he lugs upstairs one by one. (The population of London has halved.) Batteries. (There's a rumour going around that the President has been shot.) Tins of food that won't go bad for a while. (In Argentina, there are literal fucking zombies in quarantine.) Bandages. (Two hundred Apache children have been stolen overnight.) Prints of important photos. He pretends that he is preparing for an end that will never come, but he knows it's already happened. 

By July, almost seventeen million people are dead across the USA and UK. Wilbur streams for charity, every single day, for hours. The value of the pound plummets, and yet he makes more money than ever before. There's a sordid kind of comfort in it because he has time, now, he has an abundance of time to go off on tangents and read messages in depth and talk about anything that comes to mind. There's nothing much else to do, nothing but play games and promise his mother he won't brave the immigration riots.

 **terenysaur gave 30000 bits! ◇**  
im so scared, wilbur. i know were not friends or anything, but thank you so much for doing this. please make sure your safe and well <333 

_Wilbur Soot and three others liked:_ **@Mersey_Sides**  
(7/7) There's nothing else to say. I love the lot of you very much. A different kind of thanks to **@WilburSoot** for all the gallows humour. If I tweet again, then I guess you'll know how far I got. Dramatic irony, lul. Mers out.   
**59 Retweets ⤾ 572 Likes ♡**

 _houseofsoot.png added to their story for the first time in a while._  
"i'm not gonna be online for a bit! lockdown might mess up da utilities so i'm keeping my phone charged for emergencies. should be fine. love y'all, kisses from kansas xx"   
**249 views**

 **u/32waxworks in r/wilbursoot**  
I'd like to take a moment for our British and North American members in this time of crisis. It can be easy to forget how delicate the first world really is. I'm so very sorry. If there's anything we can do to help, please do drop links below.   
**1.7k upvotes⇧⇩**

 _smpsk1es reblogged from tiredandrewired:_  
kind of crazy how nobody cares about this shit until it happens in the usa and uk, and only then when it reaches yt middle class people. it says a lot. honestly most of them deserve what they get at this point reap what u fuckin sow lololol   
_37 notes⤾_

Nobody comes to collect the rent and by the end of the fourth month, Wilbur is almost completely alone. He has a routine now. Open the window, let the solar panel dangle towards sunrise. Light a candle, get breakfast. Prep stream. Call a family member, friend or Soot. Stream. Eat. Drink. Watch YouTube. Pretend to sleep until he does. It's methodical, mechanical, compartmentalised into what thousands of people need him to be. Dozens of millions are dead and rising, but here he fucking is.

When the power finally goes he expects it. The solar charge on his laptop is a relief, but taking his hard drive from the new computer feels almost tender, funereal. He'll probably never use one again.

The real surprise is that phones go down before the Internet. A post goes around discussing it in layman's terms, but it's hard to reconcile with reality until the morning his mum's voice cuts off mid-sentence. He huffs experimentally into the microphone, amazed, and nothing comes back, not even the crackle. In that moment, he is so very alone.

So far his loneliness has been lucky, in the most moribund way. No cadavers any closer than an acquaintance. The Soots have seemingly scattered to the winds and his various scattered parents have joined a community northwards. It still rocks him, though, to hear about friends of friends that didn't make it. Mainly because it implies that there's something to make it through.

At the moment we join Wilbur, he finds that Google and Amazon have announced a truce. Obviously GPS won't work anymore without human correction, but the satellites are still technically usable - so they're being dedicated to running a group of top sites. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram. Reddit, YouTube, Twitch. Even Discord, plus a handful of others that he doesn't know but are heavily popular in other parts of the world.

The message he sends to his remaining friends and family is short.

_Hey. I'm going to keep streaming, maybe migrate when everything dies down. I've got plenty of food, power, water._

That's two thirds of a lie. He's gravely underestimated how much food he'd need to keep energised, and how much gas he'd need to cook it.

_You can obviously contact me online, mobile networks aren't working anymore and the landline's dead so no worries if I don't pick up. Seriously, no worries._

Also false. When the landline cut out without so much as a hiss, all his worst fears of family funerals came crashing down around him. Explicit in that deadened air was a promise of the end.

_If anything dangerous happens, I promise I'll pack it in and move somewhere safer. Love, Will._

Although that's not a lie, it's not quite true either. What he doesn't know is that soon enough, there won't be anywhere safer to go.

Most of Wilbur's news comes from the dwindling Twitter and Google staff, or from his Twitch chat. He sets up to stream on a clear summer day, less worried about his solar panels than before, and notices people talking there before he even goes live. That's odd.

He greets almost a thousand people in low tones - abysmal compared to his old averages, but somehow meaning so much more now - and asks what's going on. He gets back _sick_ and _zombies_ and a concise _end of the fucking world._

Where horrified shock should be he feels...disappointment? Inevitability? Of course it would end this way. No matter how thoroughly he had prepared to simply stay, entrenched in his old life, it was impossible.

His audience halves, quarters, melts away over the day. People are beginning to move (or that's the optimistic thought).

And so must he, Wilbur realises in a punch to the gut of dawning comprehension. London is all but abandoned after the riots, which means no more neighbours. No more postpeople, no more police, no more shopkeepers. Just looters, criminals and... _and crazy stubborn shut-ins who should have hightailed it to Indiana as soon as things started going to shit._

The city has perhaps never been so quiet.

 **Schlatt Today at 18:12**  
hey so i had an idea question whatever  
**[👋1]**  
kind of dumb but  
do you think you can get to america anytime soon

 **WilburSoot Today at 18:37**  
I mean probably not  
Airports are kind of done now i assume

 **Schlatt Today at 18:37**  
yeah :(  
boats maybe?  
look its not a big thing  
just were still shacked up in the woods  
carson fucking _haaaaaates_ it

 **WilburSoot Today at 18:38**  
Tell me about it  
He thinks hes being subtle but i know hes in a bad way  
Have you talked to him?

 **Schlatt Today at 18:40**  
fuck man theres not exactly much else to do

 **WilburSoot Today at 18:40**  
Wdym?

 **Schlatt Today at 18:40**  
noahs adjusting actually quite well  
hes trying to set up a farm  
but its all so fast  
sorry ill shut up how are you dealing

 **WilburSoot Today at 18:46**  
Either miraculously well or terribly  
I feel like I'm dreaming all the itme

 **Schlatt Today at 18:46**  
same  
weve been watching you a lot though  
youre like  
important to people now

 **WilburSoot Today at 18:46**  
Fuck off lol  
But why on alts? I havent seen you in chat

 **Schlatt Today at 18:47**  
no im serious  
n we cant afford to get recognised anymore  
not safe, specially not for me and carson

 **WilburSoot Today at 18:47**  
Carson and I

 **Schlatt Today at 18:47**  
whatever  
anyway we were pretty much ready to go since day one because ted is such a conspiacy crackhead  
please dont mention moses to him btw we havent heard from him in ages

 **WilburSoot Today at 18:47**  
Moses??

 **Schlatt Today at 18:47**  
hes fine probably

 **WilburSoot Today at 18:48**  
I havent really been keeping up  
Can you like

 **Schlatt Today at 18:48**  
i get you  
most people are accounted for  
dunno about the british lot

 **WilburSoot Today at 18:49**  
Same, sidemen and CC are almost all still kicking  
Soots are up north or in europe like eveyone else, we haven't had loads of time to chat

 **Schlatt Today at 18:49**  
noted  
australias still on fvcking fire but now with added zombies  
misfits et al are all alive afaik  
wait almost all?

 **WilburSoot Today at 18:50**  
Marriott and Alex got bit at fhe airport  
Fraser told me

 **Schlatt Today at 18:57**  
unfunny  
didnt laugh

 **WilburSoot Today at 18:58**  
I'm not joking

 **Schlatt Today at 18:58**  
that fucking sucks just goddamn it fucking shit  
theyre not the first or last ar ethey

 **WilburSoot Today at 19:00**  
No  
No I suppose not

**Schlatt is typing...**

But what else is there to say?


	2. Slice of Life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i don't like this tone and length as much, but i've played around with the structure and i think it works best this way - just to reflect the mood of the chapter  
> (also dialogue practice)

It's a new day. Wilbur opens the window, lets the solar panel dangle towards sunrise. He lights a candle, gets breakfast. Prepares to stream. Calls a family member, friend or Soot. Streams. Eats. Drinks. Watches YouTube. Pretends to sleep until he does.

 **Slimecicle Today at 13:37**  
Hey there!

 **WilburSoot Today at 13:39**  
Hey there yourself!  
This is a nice surprise

 **Slimecicle Today at 13:39**  
wuh oh  
I hear a "but"

 **WilburSoot Today at 13:40**  
Aha!  
You hear a butt

 **Slimecicle Today at 13:41**  
I knew we should have talked more  
forgot you were so funny

 **WilburSoot Today at 13:41**  
Thank you!  
Theres no but or butt I promise   
What can I do you for Mr Sllimecicle??

 **Slimecicle Today at 13:41**  
Mr. Slimecicle was my father's name. Please, call me Charlie.  
 **[😔1]**  
okay actually though i'm here to check in  
We're kind of going around and making sure people are   
alright

 **WilburSoot Today at 13:43**  
Well I'm doing great thank you :)  
Nothing has even touched me I'm really lucky  
Haven't even seen a zombie irl

 **Slimecicle Today at 13:43**  
hey congrats! that's awesome to hear  
Speaking of real lucky  
I have it on good authority that we are now  
Drum roll please

 **WilburSoot Today at 13:43**  
dududududududrrruu  
 **[🥁]**

 **Slimecicle Today at 13:44**  
(Thank you)  
 **Real American Farmers**  
It's like stardew valley but serious and harder  
Obviously we're videoing that stuff  
what elseeeee  
We play dnd a lot now also that's real fun

 **WilburSoot Today at 13:45**  
Dude I fucking miss dnd  
Your guys' podcast is so good to sleep to

 **Slimecicle Today at 13:45**  
us guys as in JRWI or us giys as in the new young farmers association of america

 **WilburSoot Today at 13:46**  
Yeha  
Yeah*  
Well both but the first one

 **Slimecicle Today at 13:46**  
Aw nuts  
Its that boring?

 **WilburSoot Today at 13:46**  
No I didnt mean  
It's a good show even now  
I love Velrisa's new thing with the tieflings

 **Slimecicle Today at 13:47**  
dw i'm joshing  
thank you it actually means a lot

 **WilburSoot Today at 13:48**  
Good :)  
Uh

 **WilburSoot Today at 13:51**  
I'm really fucking sorry by the way  
About everything with Condi  
There are no words

**Slimecicle is typing...**

_..._

**Slimecicle is typing...**

**Slimecicle Today at 14:00**  
yeah well  
you cant get hung up on  
uh  
shitty fucking awfl shit all the time ahahaj  
weve all lost people and I guess  
life is goig as good as it can be

 **WilburSoot Today at 14:03**  
I'm glad dude

It's a new day. Wilbur opens the window, lets the solar panel dangle towards sunrise. He lights a candle, gets breakfast. Prepares to stream. Calls a family member, friend or Soot. Streams. Eats. Drinks. Watches YouTube. Pretends to sleep until he does.

 **WilburSoot Today at 20:31**  
Hey this is a _weird_ segue but  
Quick q  
Who exactly is staying at the farm cabin scouts arrangement thing

 **Schlatt Today at 20:32**  
uhhh gimme a second i know its 15  
pretty much a skeleton crew for a farm

 **Schlatt Today at 20:36**  
lunch club, josh, joko, madi, grace, kate, angie, dave, ryan

 **WilburSoot Today at 20:36**  
Dave???  
What?

 **Schlatt Today at 20:36**  
krtzyy not techno  
camera guy you met him once maybe  
i wanna say at a vidcon  
obviously you know how we all ended up here but im not sure about some of the specfics youll have to ask them  
whyd u ask

 **WilburSoot Today at 20:38**  
No reasonnn  
Just been watching the new videos

 **Schlatt Today at 20:39**  
oh shit yeah  
i know its not that fun or artsy anymore but at least  
at least we're helping people

 **WilburSoot Today at 20:39**  
Mm  
So what did happen to Techno?  
He hasn't reached out and I'm you know  
Little bit worried haahaha

 **Schlatt Today at 20:40**  
in all honesty i was hoping you knew  
hey  
hey  
heyy  
get some sleep wilbur you sound exhausted

 **WilburSoot Today at 20:43**  
Rude twat lol  
And it's Will

 **Schlatt Today at 20:43**  
i am of course notorious for my remarkable politeness  
manners man, they call me

 **WilburSoot Today at 20:44**  
Ahaha don't you start 😔

It's a new day. Wilbur opens the window, lets the solar panel dangle towards sunrise. He lights yesterday's candle, decides to skip breakfast after a lingering moment of deliberation. Prepares to stream. Messages a Soot. Streams. Eats. Drinks. Pretends to sleep until he does.

 **SootCharlie Today at 10:09**  
and then i said clearly he can do it himself  
if hes so productive  
so now hes watering all the seeds and thinks hes won lmao

 **WilburSoot Today at 10:09**  
You're a sneaky bastard

 **SootCharlie Today at 10:10**  
ty ty i'll be here all week  
nah i'm just lazy  
you wanna call?

 **WilburSoot Today at 10:12**  
Not today sorry  
Or we can but I wont talk  
Cant

 **SootCharlie Today at 10:12**  
ah of course my mistake  
i forgot about the lack of wiggle room in your extremely busy schedule (:

 **WilburSoot Today at 10:13**  
Pfft  
Okay SootCharlie

 **SootCharlie Today at 10:13**  
ok Wilbur Soot  
isnt it kinda funny how we keep using these handles  
even when it doesn't matter

 **WilburSoot Today at 10:13**  
Not really no  
Just depressing.

 **WilburSoot Today at 10:15**  
Sorry lol  
How's the election going?

 **SootCharlie Today at 10:16**  
tbh?  
its a _riot_  
one of the guys running said today, i shit you not  
"the isle of wight will be an isle of might"

 **WilburSoot Today at 10:16**  
Holy fuck  
Definitely a lad to keep your eye on

 **SootCharlie Today at 10:17**  
ikr like man are you stupid stupid or what  
number one we are maybe four dozen people plus kids  
number the second, coutries dont mean shit anymore  
wow  
realised how dark that was as i typed it

It's a new day. Wilbur opens the window, lets the solar panel dangle towards sunrise. He coaxes a light from the candle stub, skips breakfast. Prepares to stream. Streams. Drinks. Pretends to sleep.

_3 new notifications!_

It's a new day. Wilbur opens the window, lets the solar panel dangle towards sunrise. He coaxes a light from the candle stub, skips breakfast. Prepares to stream. Streams. Ponders for whom he still pretends to sleep.

_11 new notifications._

It's a new day. Wilbur goes to open the window, finds himself confronted with the bare sharpness of sunrise where he's forgotten to close it in the first place. He doesn't remember breakfast, but the symbolic Freddos box is lighter when he stumbles and knocks it to the floor. That's funny. He prepares to stream. Streams, maybe? Maybe he forgets to go live. Maybe that's for the best. Wow, now _that's_ funny. People say he's not funny, but they're all actually wrong. He drinks in heavy, hollowing gulps. Pretends to sleep.

_About twenty-five new notifications..._

It's a new day. He gorges himself on the last of the week's rice with trembling hands and pretends it won't sit heavy in his stomach. Uses the burst of energy to digs a new trench in the garden, wonders why his skin feels like tissue paper against the shovel handle. There's a little riddle. Pretends to sleep, so doggedly that he almost manages to convince his scattered sense of self of its truth.

_Fifty-two fucking new notifications. Jesus Christ._

It's a new day. He can't face the mounting trials of human interaction, and as a substitute spends somewhere between six minutes and six hours constructing a placatory Tweet. It is an upbeat note, asking only for a few days of radio silence and their already strained patience. Sleep finally takes pity on him. And no new bloody notifications, either.

The next few days dissolve in his synapses like candyfloss in water. At best, I can tell you he sleeps a lot and drinks a lot and cries a lot more than either.

Until, in a rarely lucid moment, he comes to an epiphany. He's regrettably halfway out of the window when it happens, threading cable and watching the sun swell sluggishly over the street. His street. It is a perfect, undisturbed oil painting that he sees at sunrise and at noon in states of static purity. It all looks the same as it has for months, and he knows...

It's not a new day. It's the same day, it is the same day, it is the same day as every single other day (but his collapsing routine and dwindling supplies refuse to abide by this basic truth, this fundamental rule of his universe, much longer) and for him? For him, it will never be a new day again. 

With this realisation comes a splintering of atomic proportions. Something choking and cool and boiling builds up behind his eyes, pressure and palpitation, and Wilbur simply shatters over the windowsill.

His bedclothes are grubby because he keeps forgetting to wash them - and he, and, um, and he keeps forgetting, there are canyon cracks in his head and they yawn treacherously deep - but they are a great comfort to collapse into like an infant and howl. Great hiccuping sobs erupt from him, surround him, wrack his body with involuntary tremors. He lets it happen, and he hates himself for it, because the random shakes are the closest fascimile of human contact he's found in months.

By now, most of his family must be dead. Most of his friends are dead. Most of his idols and lovers and rivals and crushes and coworkers are rotting and gone and for some reason he is still fucking _here._ He is still here, and it will never be a new day again. 

Around the third time he reaches for the week's rice and recalls he never got around to making it, he genuinely considers the merits of a graceful end. Wrappers litter his floor, but it's thoroughly alright; you can't see it on stream. Chat won't suspect a thing. Chat. Chat need him back, and soon.

What is there left for him here, in this stale broom cupboard that holds some of his happiest memories? Romance and its cruder cousin hold no appeal for him anymore. One is functionally impossible, the other a waste of precious energy. He comes to the conclusion that he will starve in this room with sweet cocoa on his tongue, alone and only tangentially loved, shrouded in the tatters of a dead world and entombed in the coffin of his own mulish obstinacy.

Tear-stained and miserable, he turns on the stream and pours his heart out. Except as it turns out, he doesn't, because _somebody_ hasn't been charging the _fucking_ solar panel!

Later, when logic returns, a part of him is grateful for the lapse. It collides like a punch when he works up the courage to look in the mirror. The man in the mirror is unshaven and exhausted with a mane rippling to his ears, the slight wildness that was always present in his eyes swallowing the light there like never before. And therein lies the rub. Rationally he knows nobody could begrudge him this face, but the thought of showing it to the world worries and wheedles at the back of his mind.

An idea creeps in and takes hold. Beguiling in its novelty, as if it hasn't been waiting for him since the murky beginning. It was ground into the train seats, it was smeared across the nurse's brow, it was carefully packaged for him by the pharmacist and it is bubbling through his mirror in a fountain of twisted glass.

He's leaving the fetid here and now to languish in ancient history, moving forward to the new. There's still time for him.

He's going to America. Before it's too late.


	3. House of Cards

Life isn't what it used to be.

At first this is just an uncomfortable truth, a bitter pill to swallow with an aftertaste of rot. But as the months progress, Cooper finds in it a kind of liberating solace. An uncomfortable truth matures into a tentatively comfortable mantra - life isn't what it used to be, and maybe that's okay.

Of course, the shift takes time. In the beginning there is nothing but the horror, so all-encompassing and offensive that it refuses rationality. The first time he sees someone die, for example. It defies description, even after all those years of brutal shooters and bloody slasher films. No amount of gratuitous gore could ever quite capture the crack, the slump, the sigh. He's forced to recall it like ancient history or a videogame plot, to detach himself from the emotions of it before they consume him entirely. It's probably unhealthy.

_They're a stranger. That's the first fact in a long list of them._

_A skater is standing in the mall with his board at his side. It's been a great day thus far. One of his friends has ice cream on his nose. The ice cream is almost good enough to justifiy its exorbitant price. These are facts._

_Outside McDonald's there is a man talking loudly about immigration. Another one of the skater's friends is making a snide comment. The man is red in the face. The skater thinks briefly about Bernie Sanders. These are facts._

_People are beginning to cluster. Words that the skater has never heard being used without irony are flying. The shouting is reaching a fever pitch. Something glitters under the cool lighting. These are facts._

_They're a stranger. They're breathing quite hard in the face of the angered man. And then they're not._

_And that's a fact._

Not to suck his own cock too vigorously, but Cooper's definitely one of the first to grasp the gravity of it all. Why? He couldn't say. In the bloody beginning, as they make their arrival in a whirl of preparedness and sudden poverty and decide that the dormitories won't cut it, he's the first to stop staring blankly around and actually stake a claim to a space of his own.

It's a mercifully windowed utility room that juts out from the main building like a sore thumb. The latest in an increasingly saddening series of obsoletes, bulky washing machines line one wall. Even with the chalky malodor of of disuse they make the whole place smell like soap and it's not _good,_ exactly, but it's fine. Not awful, just weird to think of as Cooper's room.

Enlisting Angie - the closest person who isn't also having a mental breakdown - to help him drag a mattress inside proves an unexpectedly good idea. There's an awkward aloofness between them until she comments dryly on his taste in interior design. Taken aback, he laughs out loud in a bubbling giggle. It sparkles, tastes like optimism in the dusty air.

At this point the stabbing is still fresh and visceral in his mind, and he resolves not to keep these people as strangers. She chuckles gingerly along with him and for all her reticence seems to feel the same way.

He's not sure how to feel about the homestead itself. Obviously the main house is meant to _look_ like a huge log cabin, but inside it's more like the most bougie Scouts hut in the world and decked out accordingly. It's not like there's much for him to unpack.

The plan, which admittedly was never meant to accomodate so many people, was to bring whatever you could fit on your body and and a suitcase. Swaddled in his favourite hoodies like a snowman, boiling in the encroaching summer heat, Cooper sits on his luggage and calls his father. Together, they set him up accounts on the platforms still left. 

"Life isn't what it used to be," his dad proclaims sagely at one point. "I do hope I get to see you again." It's stilted, but there's arguably no better time to make amends than now. All he wants to do is hum assuredly and force himself to agree, to stop looking down on himself like a character in a movie and tell his family how very much he loves and misses them.

"So I think the phone lines are gonna stop working soon," he says instead. Of course he's adjusting faster than the others, and there's a measure of shame in that. He does care. He does.

That said, it wouldn't be fair to pretend it gets easier. He doesn't feign enjoyment of the violent new edge to the world like some people, but he sure doesn't cry or cower. At least his first kill is a zombie. Sure it's a good six or so weeks deep into the crisis - deep enough that all semblance of law has already fallen away from half the rural continent - but what only Kate knows is that it's also a kid.

"For Christ's sake, I'm here!"

If this is July, then he'd hate to see fucking December. The others can make fun all they want, but the Oregon cold - and it _is_ cold, it is - seeps into his bones and simply does not leave. Plodding over to the sectioned-off farmland, he feels frozen to the spot every time his boots so much as make contact with the sucking mud.

"Suck my dick and balls until they fucking wither. You need to stop," he wrenches the hoe from Travis' hands, "making so much goddamn noise. We're not alone out here." They can't afford to get complacent, no matter how much he has to grouse.

"I beg to differ-" Travis starts, plaintive and boyish. He's changed perhaps the most. Sharper and more eloquent than he used to be, he's a different kind of enigma than in the good old days and it physically hurts to think about what inspired such a drastic change. Fuck. He misses seeing his friends smile without fragility, and on Trav's face especially the anguish they all bear is cleanly transparent.

"Then beg," Cooper cuts him off darkly. "I don't want to see you getting fucking eaten. Get yourself inside and I'll finish up before sunset." It's not a request. They don't have a chain of command, per se, but it usually seems to be Ted that smooths over the big decisions.

And Ted's not here right now.

In silent challenge, he raises both eyebrows. The playful twist drops from Travis' face and he nods, once. He stomps away down the thicket and Cooper is left alone in his place. This is his mistake.

Shortly after taking the requisite moment to grumble on Discord he gets to work on the lettuce, steels himself for the discomfort of serious exercise. That ache at least is a little less painful every day. There's something dependable and mundane about actually digging holes and sprinkling seeds, like playing Minecraft on meth.

And then it's on him without warning, bursting out of the trees with an anticlimactic wheeze of air. It careens mindlessly into the hedgerow and then roughly through, barreling towards him with heedless haste and not a hint of logic. Cooper hates being right.

Fuck if he hasn't practiced enough for this by now. He raises his gun and aims to kill, _his_ gun, an alien phrase and an alien feeling, and stops.

Because it's only a boy. There's a spatter of freckles across his nose and bright orange sauce crusted around his mouth. Christ, Cooper can't even see a bite - all that gives away his true nature is the gnashing of teeth under blue braces and those terrible sleepwalker eyes. Past that, it's just the normal head of a normal kid and he's pointing a gun at a normal fucking kid and he falls backwards-

It's biblically loud when the crack of buckshot splits the air. Pretty much vaporised from the waist down, the zombie flips twice over into the hedge and on its back is a gaping sore that brooks no illusions. The spell is broken. He recognises now the eerie greying pallor, the spores bulging offensively at it temples, and Cooper realises how very close he is to death as what remains drags itself towards him on filthy hands. (But, like...it still just looks like a kid, man.)

Kate's stood above him, panting loudly. She's staring at the shotgun in her hands with unmasked disgust and something akin to awe. There's no judgment in her eyes as he hastens out of the furrow to her side and shoots the approaching zombie in the head twice, thrice, four times. A waste of ammo, but the recoil is terrifying and he needs to be sure. He shoots until it stops moving and then some. He shoots until it all catches up with him and his precious lunch comes back up. He shoots until Kate takes a worried step towards him and he fumbles the gun uselessly into the dirt. _Life isn't what it used to be._

It might never be again, Cooper determines as footsteps thud through an afternoon's worth of good fucking lettuce. Drawn by the sound, almost the whole group is here to stare solemnly down at the bloody mess. Yikes.

"If we heard it, then they certainly did," Ryan points out after a time, lips pursed in stiff contemplation. Nobody asks who 'they' are. He's right. Travis is trembling, and oddly enough so is Joko. Madi thumps them both on the back and offers to burn the soil in a voice that almost doesn't shake.

They spend that night in silence. Huddled in the common room in a clump away from the windows, hoping that the animals are safe, helplessness suffuses the group. Nothing to do but wait, after all. There's an honest-to-god rota for the solar panels, but almost everyone in the room is using their valuable battery listening to music and trying to sleep. Cooper takes first watch, and then second and third, and then Josh tells him in no uncertain terms to rest already. Of course he doesn't.

The pathetically fallacious full moon paints a stark silver outline of the windows. Shadows mark the - hopefully aimless - wandering of maybe four dozen recently alive visitors, drawn by gunfire and then presumably the scent of livestock. That includes them.

Cooper's phone makes it almost three in the morning before a faroff gunshot groans through the valley, a sepulchral holler that fractures the ambience of farm and forest. Their circle of sluggish bodies dissolves immediately into a formation of tense angles and heady suspense. Noah locks eyes with Cooper and lets out a barely tangible sigh that nonetheless speaks volumes; at the expense of someone else, somewhere else, they are safe in their fortress if only for a day longer.

"Not what it used to be," he mumbles, half to himself but equally half to nobody at all, and Carson eyes him with an unpalatable alloy of consternation and concern. Schlatt notes quietly that the zombies are thinning, and he shuts the fuck up until they've all moved on to greener pastures to destroy.

A few weeks pass mainly uneventfully. Charlie's birthday is in August. He and Grace go for a walk without telling anyone, and upon their return Ted goes fucking ballistic. Honestly the whole resulting argument just makes Cooper uncomfortable, because the thing with Ted Nivison is that he never quite turns _off._ He's done a fine job organising them, but it's not like he's any older or wiser than the others. Without the sterilisation that comes with irony, his diatribes just feel like being lectured by a highly-strung parent. Hopefully it's just cabin fever and not any kind of genuinely held resentment. Speaking of which.

Only five days later, Dave's birthday comes and goes without a word as zombies follow a group of skinny mule deer right through their land. When they're definitely, definitely safe he's gifted the choice of music and some of the Christmas cake that Angie brought. It's the little things, in a modest if depressing affair. 

By the time they've gone through the motions of cake and singing and presents, the birthday boy mutters something about the cows really needing to be milked and disappears. Ted doesn't bring it up, not even at sunset when they're gathered solemnly to watch the national news and he finally pads in just to fall asleep on Angie's shoulder.

Life isn't what it used to be. They're so very lucky, and yet - especially for someone who considers himself kind of unusually well-adapted to this ugly looming future - Cooper spends a lot of time thinking about the past.

Which means that the day he hears the sobbing, it's less of a shock than another blot on the bingo card. Keeping at bay grief is a full time job to balance with animal husbandry and the beginnings of a subsistence farm. Awful benefits, honestly. Not even dental for their time and effort.

But people lose these kind of hangups faster than you'd think, so when he pads out of the kitchen and hears sniffling from one of the supply cupboards, it's already second nature to grit his teeth and knock.

"Fuck. I'm sorry, Carson," Schlatt mutters dourly through the hardwood. He fiddles with the doorhandle for a noment and it clicks. "Hope you're feeling better-" His red eyes meet Cooper's, and his frown melts away into a perfect 'O".

"Are we doing this?" he asks, slow but succinct. Through some convenient miracle the question comes out unflappable and unbothered. By way of response, Schlatt pulls him inside by the shoulder and slams the door behind them. There's a joke in there somewhere.

And it's...haha, damn. It's a fucking arts and crafts cupboard. The shelves have been picked clean and restocked with a meagre few possessions: a laptop, mementoes, a stack of neatly folded shirts. Shuffling forwards into the lamplight, Cooper almost breaks his neck tripping over a leftover rainbow pipe cleaner. "Nice place you got here." 

Something raw and bloody wears Schlatt's clothes. It hunches its shoulders and perches cross-legged on his mattress, extending no invitation for him to follow, so he slides down against the door and lets the dead air settle. Wrong, this is all wrong. He talked to Schlatt at dinner, and this isn't Schlatt. This is a different beast, limp and cadaverous and dangerous and so transparently _tired._

It's unsettling at best, to see him this way. The tears track through the grime on his cheeks in chilling antithesis as Cooper casts around for something to say. "What's eating you?"

"Everything," Schlatt replies immediately with the air of someone moments away from producing cue cards and a lectern. Knowing him, a bullet-pointed list would probably suffice. "Ma's not calling back. Mason, he's sicker than he told you he was and fuck, don't tell him I said that. My cousin - Jack, ginger, you've met - says the army's breaking down. I think Will might actually be dead." And there it is. "It's all just a fuckin' lot, y'know?"

Wilbur's protracted absence is disheartening, but not exactly surprising. (Cooper, who's never really spoken to the guy more than permitted by conventions and coincidence, doesn't have the heart to point out how long ago he went _visibly_ off the damn deep end. It might just put Schlatt down.) Personally he's more concerned with the people he still has left. The medicine down where Mason's people have shacked up surely won't last forever.

Thinking feels too loud. A few rooms away, someone laughs in an uproarious chorus. Schlatt looks charitably haunted by the sound. "I can't, that is to say, I, uh. I. Wow. I-I can't keep doing this, man." And when he looks up at Cooper, layered in a slick film over his eyes is the kind of uninhibited anguish reserved for funerals and futility.

"In...the bad way?" he asks, and abhors how childish his voice sounds. It's a small question in the small room, watching the small space between Schlatt's thumbs where his nails have dragged to the surface a row of small and startling scarlet crescents. He scoffs, an esoteric little half-snort, then presses the heels of his hands into his eyes. 

"No, Cooper. I'm not going to kill myself." 

It's blunt and direct and rings terribly true. What can he possibly say to that? He picks up the pipe cleaner and twists it around one finger. Schlatt's gaze follows the movement listlessly.

"Could've fooled me," Cooper says, and they sit quietly for a time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> new pov! new tone! new format! this fic truly is just my emotional and literary playground huh
> 
> kind of depressing how as soon as i started writing this escapist fiction about a plague and discrimination and the apocalypse, not only did brexit happen and the american primaries were a shambles but now we also get to see coronavirus and climate change skipping up the garden path. you do love to see it
> 
> (that said, i tried to focus more on the wacky zombies for this part because irl politics is so dismal right now :>)


	4. quick update!!

hello dears, quick update!

in light of recent events, this fic is going on hold for a while. it was a fun literary exercise to imagine what would happen in this situation theoretically. but now it's kind of really happening - albeit without the zombies - and it just makes me feel really sad to read and write. for example, writing a fictionalised caricature of wilbur in isolation is probably something he would appreciate at the time, but now he's literally on stream from quarantine in germany it feels extremely dehumanising.

wash your hands, don't share droplets, stay safe and don't panic. we'll be okay.

💙

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Somewhere To Run To](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24028807) by [everythingFangirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/everythingFangirl/pseuds/everythingFangirl)




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